Solution for the homeless.

Here's an idea: Let's encourage the US churches to solve the homeless problem. There are 18 million vacant homes, and a million homeless people. Many vacant houses can be purchased for a few thousand dollars and fixed up for a few thousand more. US churches collect $100 billion a year in tithes.

So, let's say they spend 20 thousand dollars buying and fixing up each home. These won't be palaces, but they could be safe and offer all the necessities.

If they bought a million homes and fixed them up, they would be spending 20 billion dollars.

There are 350,000 churches ... so that would be about three homes per church. Now, if they decided to tackle this project over three years, that would be one home per church per year. Church members and others could volunteer to help fix the homes up and businesses and suppliers could help and could donate time, labor, and equipment. They could also help to ensure that whoever is going to live in the house has a job and can pay to keep utilities on and food in the house.

Spread out over three years, the churches would be spending about $6 billion a year, or about 6% of their tithes each year.
But at the end of three years, there will be no homeless people in the US and the churches would have actually solved one of our problems.

I mean, really, the Church has billions of dollars to spend on itself, yet fails to feed the poor and give them shelter.
NOTE: This isn't my original idea, I saw this somewhere and felt like posting it to get your opinions.

But if the Catholic Church buys homes for homeless people, how will they be able to upkeep their palace~~ :0

Also, a lot of homeless people are gay or transgendered or something that got them kicked out of home. Churches generally like to discriminate against those people. I know the Salvation Army neglects gay and transgendered people most of the time.

It's a good idea. Just not one that would work out practically. A lot of churches are small ones that don't have the money for building homes like that. At one local medium sized church in my town it took them 5 years to raise enough money to build a retreat land house and then 2 years to build it. Also you suggest that the leader of the household would have a job... practically speaking this isn't going to always be possible (especially if they live in an area like Detroit). The final reason why I think this wouldn't work is because many churches aren't willing to give money to a cause unless it directly promotes their faith.

So good idea, but it's lost in the details. Sorry to be the downer of the thread

I would questions the figures as well. My church is barely surviving, though we may be an exception. However, a very good church friend of mine has two houses and he's renting out his old house at a very reduced rate to a family that ran on hard times. There is no mother, and the father was looking for work. The church found him a job, and my friend provided his house for very little. The man has several children. I might add that the man and his family is black, and our church population is predominantly white. I'm often proud of my church and my church friends. It is what Jesus asks us to do. Giving to the needy almost always makes you feel good.

You make the churches in the United States sound like a big coorporation like Walmart. The fact is that all of these churches have different ways of handling things and different ideologies. There is no figure-head that controls all of the churches across the country. Something of this magnitude would be far too unorganized.

But if the Catholic Church buys homes for homeless people, how will they be able to upkeep their palace~~ :0

Also, a lot of homeless people are gay or transgendered or something that got them kicked out of home. Churches generally like to discriminate against those people. I know the Salvation Army neglects gay and transgendered people most of the time.

as a "catholic" and member of a catholic community when i lived in Portland, Oregon... with the Priest's help, urging and support; the community bought a house and used it to shelter the homeless and sick of the gay community... on top of that, our catholic community also helped out at several housing facilities that were doing the same thing...

i am my brothers keeper...
it's not for me to look at what others are not doing and criticize. but only to look for what i myself can do, and fucking do it!

This is how you solve the homeless problem and help the economy/ deficit.....

All around the country are these killed over bussiness's. They are literally everywhere just waiting for someone to bulldozer the damn things.
Have the government retrofit them into various legitimate establishments. Hire homeless people or unemployed people to operate the bussiness.
Have a percentage of profits go towards the local town, state, and federal funding / deficit.

In one incident, a major economic problem was solved by the government creating jobs. One that comes to mind was that they hired people to dig ditches on the side of the road during the day. At night they had a diferent crew come in and fill them if I'm not mistaken. Of course times were much simpler back then.

You make it sounds like the bulk of homeless people are just having difficulty finding a job. The non-politically correct truth is a lot of homelessness is driven by mental illness and drug abuse... neither of which makes for the model employee. Either way, state subsidized cheap labour is unfair to everyone else. You employ one person, but put another out of business.. using said businesses tax dollars no less!